1. Field of Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to cooling systems used in a data center environment, and more particularly to an airfoil frame that is provided on a computer room air conditioning (“CRAC”) unit.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Equipment enclosures or racks for housing electronic equipment, such as data processing, networking and telecommunications equipment have been used for many years. Such racks are used to contain and to arrange the equipment in large data centers, as well as small wiring closets and equipment rooms. In certain embodiments, an equipment rack can be an open configuration and can be housed within a rack enclosure, although the enclosure may be included when referring to a rack. A standard rack typically includes front mounting rails to which multiple units of electronic equipment, such as servers, CPUs and telecommunication equipment, are mounted and stacked vertically within the rack. With the proliferation of the Internet, it is not uncommon for a data center to contain hundreds of these racks. Further, with the ever decreasing size of computer equipment, and in particular, computer servers and blades, the number of electrical devices mounted in each rack has been increasing, raising concerns about adequately cooling the equipment.
Heat produced by rack-mounted equipment can have adverse effects on the performance, reliability and useful life of the equipment components. In particular, rack-mounted equipment, housed within an enclosure, may be vulnerable to heat build-up and hot spots produced within the confines of the enclosure during operation. The amount of heat generated by a rack of equipment is dependent on the amount of electrical power drawn by equipment in the rack during operation. In addition, users of electronic equipment may add, remove, and rearrange rack-mounted components as their needs change and new needs develop.
Previously, in certain configurations, data centers have been cooled by computer room air conditioner (“CRAC”) units that are positioned around the periphery of the data center room. In one embodiment, a CRAC unit intakes air from the front of the unit and outputs cooler air upwardly toward the ceiling of the data center room. In other embodiments, the CRAC unit intakes air from near the ceiling of the data center room and discharges cooler air under a raised floor for delivery to the fronts of the equipment racks. In general, such CRAC units intake room temperature air (at about 72° F. (22° C.)) and discharge cold air (at about 55° F. (13° C.)), which is blown into the data center room and mixed with the room temperature air at or near the equipment racks. The rack-mounted equipment typically cools itself by drawing air along a front side or air inlet side of a rack, drawing the air through its components, and subsequently exhausting the air from a rear or vent side of the rack.
One exemplary CRAC unit is constituted by a box-shaped housing, which is opened at the top to receive a certain air flow rate and opened at the bottom to deliver the air flow to the servers. The housing typically supports a heat exchange coil to cool down the air entering the CRAC unit, and fans to move the air flow. Other devices that are needed to operate the CRAC unit, such as pipes used to connect the heat exchange coil, a pan to collect condensate, and other components, are supported within the housing.
One driver of the design of the CRAC unit is the amount of power used to operate the CRAC unit as compared to the cooling capacity of the CRAC unit. It is desirable to reduce the amount of power to operate the CRAC unit while increasing the cooling capacity. In order to reduce the absorbed power of the CRAC unit, efforts have been made in improving the fan efficiency, in optimizing the dimension of the CRAC unit housing, and evaluating components affecting the pressure drop within the CRAC unit. Within the CRAC unit, there are different causes for the pressure drops. FIG. 1 illustrates a thermal image of a typical CRAC unit in which the identified zones (indicated by circles) represent losses of energy. In particular, the identified zones are those in which embodiments of the airfoil frame as described herein are intended to reduce.